Criminal accusations of corruption have been made against Craig Murray:
”
he lobbied so-called businessmen including those from Pakistan willing to get cotton and other state contracts, those people had contacts with different Uzbek clan representatives including Bekzod Akhmedov. Akhmedov was seen many times in Craig Murray and his pseudo businessmen’s company in dens of iniquity of the capital, Bekzod Akhmedov’s favorite venues.
”
The allegations must be taken extremely seriously because they come from an Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. The lady in question is of course Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the President of Uzbekistan. As is her usual method, she gave an interview to a glossy magazine journalist in Switzerland not given to probing questioning. Even this publication baulked at publishing these extraordinary statements, so she gave the full works on her blog:
For example yesterday in Geneva, on the first day of spring, we had another “support team” visiting us, those who are always ready to work off their payments while not having anything else to do, any other interests, hobbies or a properly paid job. A group of a few people including a cameraman, a lady of Uzbek origin Mutabar Tadjibaeva, who introduces herself as a president of the «Club des Coeurs Ardents» and guess who else? Exactly! Craig Murray – ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan, who had been scandalously fired from the British Foreign Office. He lived in Tashkent for a long time and had a relationship and even got married to a strip-bar dancer, he lobbied so-called businessmen including those from Pakistan willing to get cotton and other state contracts, those people had contacts with different Uzbek clan representatives including Bekzod Akhmedov. Akhmedov was seen many times in Craig Murray and his pseudo businessmen’s company in dens of iniquity of the capital, Bekzod Akhmedov’s favorite venues. It seems like the group of people that visited us in Geneva wanted to congratulate us with spring and express their grievance by screaming and as they said they wanted me or my sister Lola to come out. They attempted to sneak inside and walk around the house recording it all on video and we had nothing to do, but call the police and make our own video of this March invasion of “human right defenders” as they call themselves.
It is obvious, that those people mentioned above, a group of bloggers and professional PR firm such as R&R were not catalyzed accidentally. The core of the artificially initiated scandal is lost, constant threats, that someone will say something, someone like Bekzod Akhmeodv who is wanted by Interpol due to his relation to the investigation of MTS activities in Uzbekistan, who from the beginning was under the MTS-Russia protection and requested on January, 9 2013 refugee status with his big family. Also threats came for last three months from lawyers who were stating that they will have newspapers like Financial Times publish all they have, all that Bekzod Akhmedov could compose over almost a year which was accepted with pleasure by MTS lobbyists. Where else could you see such involvement at official level and could this be possible without high-reaching goals, even if it is done in such a straight way?
I might as well state for the record that to my knowledge I have never met or had any contact with Mr Bekzod Akhmedov, I have certainly never been in his social company, let alone on a “den of inquity” (though that does sound fun). I have never met any Pakistani businessmen in or to discuss Uzbekistan and I have never sought any role for myself in trading Uzbek cotton.
I certainly did visit Gulnara’s US $25 million mansion in Geneva, because I wanted to see where the proceeds of forced child labour in the Uzbek cotton fields went. I intend to do so again. I hope lots of people will – its at No. 7, Rue Prevote, Cologny, Geneva.
Gulnara’s peculiar attack on me for the “crime” of looking at her house appears a rather desperate reaction to increasing knowledge of her activities. The Chief Executive of Telesonera, Sweden’s largest telecommunications firm, had to resign recently over corrupt payments to Gulnara. In a decision reminiscent of Blair’s shutdown of the BAE Saudi bribes prosecution, Swedish authorities decided there was no public interest in prosecuting. Gulnara’s Swiss registered holding company Zeromax has been declared bankrupt, owing half a billion dollars to the state in taxes, and its assets confiscated then reprivatised to … Gulnara. Russian Telecoms giant MTS has been kicked out of Uzbekistan, substantially reducing available services there.
All of the above were examples of Gulnara kicking out fellow oligarchs from business interests which she held in partnership with others, to take the lot for herself. That has left a lot of despoiled oligarchs rather rueful. This centralisation of cash prior to a succession battle is a very high risk strategy. It is telling that Gulnara refers to my contact with Uzbek “clans”. In the Uzbek context, this does not mean tribe, but rather something more akin to regionally based mafia groupings, with whom the common people of the region have no identity. Gulnara is in the middle of a major rupture with Gafur Rakhimov, the largest mafia boss whose alliance with Karimov had been central to the regime’s stability.
I do not imagine Gulnara really believes I am connected to any of these rival mafia interests, though it is possible she is really that crazy. But plainly she is very rattled, or she would not be drawing all this attention to her business interests.
Two small points from the above. Firstly, one passage seems to reveal that the “interviewer” from Bilan was a chum of hers.
and guess who else? Exactly! Craig Murray – ex-ambassador to Uzbekistan,
I don’t think an ordinary Swiss journalist would have any idea who I was, let alone know I had called at the house.
This is one of my all time favourite tough journalist questions:
You are leading the list of most popular personalities from Central Asia in 2012 on search engines such as Google and Yandex. You are almost every day active on Twitter where you post many of your photos. How is this all related?
Final point – the first sentence of this post refers to me in the third person not because I have gone delusional, but so it works well as a retweet.
I have every hope the Karimov regime will fall in spring 2015.
Mary: I can vouch for your statement that you have not gone attacking other posters. You’re far more good natured and restrained than the likes of myself in that respect.
A timely reminder about Craig and his health. My thanks to you for your well wishes concerning my Dad on the earlier thread.
If you want my advice regarding our friend H, just ignore anything you don’t want to hear. Your posts are valuable imho, but if there is depth or subject matter that is not of interest to me, it’s a simple matter to skim or skip it. Nearly all the time they do relate to on-going subjects, again, as far as I’m concerned. The blog owner clearly thinks they’re alright too. Other posters may feel differently. If they do, screw ’em 😉
“In my time here since about 2007, I have never attacked any other contributor.”
This is blatantly not true – calling us shills, accusing us of being the same person etc. And I can assure that those who go against the dominant tendency on this blog have received far worse from others. However my real concern is your snide attacks and insinuations about those who are not contributers which I’m afraid are legion – don’t they have a right to be defended? Politicians/other public figures may be fair game within reason but when you attack their offspring and their religion or personal characteristics then you are wrong not to expect some comeback.
But you are right such behaviour gets no one anywhere – and most things, including Craig’s health, are considerably more important. Personally I’d rather hear more about why you believe what you do and what you would change in this world and how, rather than condemnations of what you dislike and links to those you support.
@ A Node :
“I suspect the ‘scatological attack’ may be a reference to my suggestion of “lan dhen cac.” I offered it in response to Habbabkuk’s appeal for a Gaelic phrase to place after his name”
In the interests of truth, I deny ever asking you for a Gaelic phrase.
Please refer us to my appeal.
If you can’t, a retraction, please.
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, Crab: that kind of instant and vicious attack. It’s why I don’t post much any more. You presumably missed my earlier comment – that Habbakuk at the time was being ‘purely reductive’ – but don’t let that stop you from wading in.
And I can’t speak for Dreoilin, but what prevents her, like Glen-UK, from being able to hold an opinion and voice it? No vitriol directed at Craig, I notice?
In fact, I have been wondering, while casting an eye in passing, whether one should be concerned for Mary, but she continues to respond with a fury which seems more than equal to the (unanswered) questions and sometimes unpleasant mockery directed at her. That being said, why should anyone not be questioned? And yet it is hard to see how she could start to answer questions now.
If it’s any consolation, Mary, I’ve still benefited from your links in recent visits (blood plasma sell-off and Alfie Meadows spring to mind: thank you). I think Habbakuk would be well advised to give you a break.
@Habba
“But could you expound a little further on your point about letting demographics and economics run their course : would you support the idea of a referendum on the question,not now, but once they have done so? And if you did, would you then not be in contradiction with your own opinion as expressed in another post of yours that there is little point in holding a referendum the results of which are well-known?”
The different rate of poulation growth in the RC population in Northern Ireland means that the hardline Protestant majority will soon be gone – also an increasing number of NI businesses are operating cross border and starting to benefit from the economic integration that is happening. The Eire economy is also changing as well – although recent evets haven’t helped. As with most things the way to progress is by reducing the role of nationalism rather than increasing it – and then allowing economic rationalism and commonsense to play a bigger part.
Yes I think there will eventually need to be a referendum in NI – I think the democratic norm is that you should have one for major constitutional change. You missed my words about “status quo” regarding pointless referendums – nothing wrong with referndums where the result is to chnage the status quo.
Tech, “viscious attack”? Just wise up, and “instant” just means short here. Short and frank unlike your essays of fuss. Cut it out.
She gets a little nip and shes been subjected to a viscious attack. HBK has been goading Mary constantly for months and shes accepting of that. Unbelievable.
@ resident Dissident :
“You missed my words about “status quo” regarding pointless referendums – nothing wrong with referndums where the result is to chnage the status quo.”
Thanks for your post. The words I quote above appear to imply that you are in favour of referenda that change (or are likely to change)the status quo but not in favour of those that confirm (or are likely to confirm) it. What is the logical (or even practical)justification for that , given that a referendum is a device for ascertaining people’s views on a defined question at any given moment in time? Or have I misunderstood you?
Yeah. To describe that as a vicious attack is a bit unworldly, to put it very mildly, especially given what Mary’s had to put up with over the past six months or so.
It can only be that there are other motivating factors which have little to do with equality of treatment, or indeed even a sensible judgement on the matter.
@ Nevermind :
“At it again?, now playing off two more posters with words such as ‘Emminences and scuttling’”
Just countering, in the manner they deserve, two unpleasant and aggressive preceding posts from Crab (17h52) and Vronsky (18h02). Check them out for yourself, Herr Udet.
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Das Leben ist schoen – sogar herrlich!
From Herbie (20h44) this , talking about Technicolour’s post unless I’m mistaken:
“It can only be that there are other motivating factors which have little to do with equality of treatment, or indeed even a sensible judgement on the matter.”
I can smell a CONSPIRACY being sniffed out!
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Laa vita è bella, life is good! (a conspiracy a day means lunacy’s here to stay)
Just another suggestion that will go unrecognized……
“I was interested in Glenn’s opinion itr. I wonder why I missed those worthwhile points being made by Craig’s guest.
Oh yeah. I am in the habit of scrolling by, by Jove ! Mayhaps something could be learned from that by the Queen’s noble servant.”
Ben Franklin.
“………..The fact that certain people – and you yourself are in fact one of them – keep reacting might indicate that my posts are rather more substantial than mere nit picking.”
I know you can do better than that. Some, myself being one of them, find you like a bad case of nettles, and feel compelled to respond. Now if you should ratchet up the good manners and stop insisting you get a response, you might find some others who would engage you in a straightforward manner. But you must (ugh!) have some patience. Is that reasonable?
@ Ben :
I don’t think I ‘insist” on a response; at most I might ask for one; but usually when you ask a question you don’t even have to say that you’d like or expect answer – that’s what the ? is there for.
Secondly, you counsel patience. But the reality is that most of my legitimate questions (eg, if I ask Mary “how is that (ie some snide personal remark) relevant to your subject” ) never get a response, so I think the problem is Mary’s unwillingnesss or inability to answer and not a lack of patience on my part.
Hababbkuk talks about legitimate questions, – if they ever submit any, they submit them in a package of deliberate annoyance. Hababbkuk is an out and out pro-troll, with no worth except to marvel at as such.
Dreoilin and Tech, i am sorry for being a bit of an arse with you in occassional discussions last. I look forward to you commenting again, but do reconsider the wisdom of just popping in with commentry on the kind of sustained criticism and goading, which goes well beyond what turned each of you away last year.
Yes, well, it felt vicious. I have been living with Quakers recently, Glad it wasn’t meant to be.
Mine, Crab, wasn’t intended to be quite so chippy, either, apologies – ironically I’d edited subtleties out for brevity.
I can’t speak for Mary, but she rarely responds. That’s her prerogative. I try not to take it personally. But it does seem to bug you alot. When I say ‘patience’ I don’t mean wait for 1/2 day following your question. What I mean by patience, is building some credibility with other posters. Being an American, I was thought to be some sort of sock-puppet for recent trollery when I first commented. I’m sure there are those who are suspicious of me still. Slowly I turn; step-by-step. I sometimes erupt, like on the American Dream thread, but I am settling in to Anglo-Saxon opinions, attitudes and beliefs, and many here have assisted me patiently, to take the edge off cultural misunderstanding.
Patience. The tide may not change according to your temperament, but it will change.
If the remaining moderator has no mind to do anything about H. can I suggest that the blog be re-designated as, de facto, H’s blog? I’m quite sure H. won’t object to an occasional contribution from Craig Murray, so that seems fair.
Yes, that is a looking glass I just stepped out of. And I’ve been asked to solve five times seven in order to defeat spam. I was fairly sure I had the right answer, but the spam is still there. And will be there again tomorrow. Until nobody calls by anymore. Well done, Jon. I wonder what five times seven really is, wish you’d tell us.
Ben: Speaking only for myself (of course!), I know that there are a great many Americans who are decent progressives. Yours is a very polarised country, and the real idiots get nearly all the publicity. It was not hard to see that you weren’t some right-wing dupe. Do you listen to the great Mike Malloy by any chance? (And I still haven’t figured out what itr means…)
*
Speaking of being picked up, any long-timers here remember how shamefully our good friend Suhayl was bullied, race-baited, and relentlessly attacked on a personal basis? A lot of this was from the liar “Larry”, not to mention a sock-puppet cluster with various homoerotic names. And Craig mentioned a couple of posts ago that he misses Larry occasionally!
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PS Vronsky – I must be letting the pressure get to me too. Four times in a row now, I’ve apparently failed to successfully perform an addition of two single-digit numbers.
Thyroid issues abound after the nuke, and they are gearing up for a non-nuclear future.
“TOKYO — Japan said Tuesday that it had extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate — sometimes called “flammable ice” — a breakthrough that officials and experts said could be a step toward tapping a promising but still little-understood energy source.
The gas, whose extraction from the undersea hydrate reservoir was thought to be a world first, could provide an alternative source of energy to known oil and gas reserves. That could be crucial especially for Japan, which is the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas and is engaged in a public debate about whether to resume the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear power.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/business/global/japan-says-it-is-first-to-tap-methane-hydrate-deposit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
It could be just as disastrous for them. Methane Hydrates bubbling to the surface from a blowout would not be good.
‘itr’, should have been irt (in regard to) , Glenn, and I did appreciate that thought when you posted following my little tantrum.
Best regards to you and your Dad. Keep me posted on his condition, and yours.
“any long-timers here remember how shamefully our good friend Suhayl was bullied, race-baited, and relentlessly attacked on a personal basis?”
Yes, Glenn, I was thinking of that. And Suhayl’s enormous patience and sense of humour in dealing with it.
This is Blair’s legacy. This is Campbell’s legacy. And Jonathon Scarlett’s and George W Bush’s and Donald Rumsfeld’s and Jonathon Powell’s…and the Labour Party’s.
http://blog.transnational.org/2013/03/iraq-and-the-betrayal-of-a-people-%e2%80%93-impunity-forever/#.UT7xzp17eBE.email
Damn them all to hell.
And now we have the LibDems – the yellow managers- shitting on an open and transparent judicial system, and on individual liberties, with the justice and security bill.
Habbakuk smells a conspiracy, between Tech and ehhhh Tech.
@ Ben :
Thanks for that post and I do believe that your intention is to be helpful. Just let me make the following points to respond and clarify and then I will stop because, to pick up to some extent on Vronsky’s latest, this blog isn’t about me or my attitudes and modes, or indeed about any one of my supposed “victims”.
1/. Of course it’s Mary’s prerogative not to respond. As it is, I think you’ll agree, mine to react to posts of hers. I general I should say that her refusal to respond (to questions of sunstance, I mean) doesn’t “bug me” because I tend to interpret her lack of response as admission of an inability to do so in a credible way and, therefore, as an admission that my point was valid. You know, like in the courtroom soaps : “the defence has no witnesses to call”.
2/. I also hear what you say about building up credibility and it’s a valid point in principle. I should say two things here : firstly, I’m not sure that I need to build up personal credibility because I should like to think that my credibility is established by the valdity (or otherwise) of the substance of what I have to say; it shouldn’t be based on what people think I might be or on the participants to whom I devote particular attention (I’ve already explained the reasons for that in any case). Secondly, I’m not sure that the “confidence building” operation you recommend is all that solid. Take, for instance, the recent posts which were kind enough to spot some merits in some of my posts. Some of those posts came from people who I’m sure have built up credibility. But the moment they dared offer me some measure of support, they themselves immediately came under attack despite their acquired credibility. Is that not so?
BTW I’ve never seen you as a right-wing dupe ; my vision is rather of a (I must be honest and say ‘rather wooly’ Californian sage. Hope that doesn’t offend, because it’s honestly not meant to 🙂
Anyway, faugh! enough of me: time for another thread!
Ben Franklin, 9:38 pm
Ben, I think it was partly your Gonzo Dagger tattoo avatar. I think various people mistook it for an emblem of militarism or violence. I went searching for similar images, discovered its true significance, and posted comments about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism
Assumptions lead to misunderstanding and hence conflict. People seem to have an instinctive tendency to polarise, and it takes conscious effort to overcome this. The more restricted the informational medium, the less check upon this tendency, so it’s a particular problem in a text-only environment such as this.
@ Habbakuk
“I tend to interpret her lack of response as admission of an inability to do so in a credible way and, therefore, as an admission that my point was valid.”
I can see that, but satisfy yourself by moving on….IOW don’t get naggy. It’s counter productive and doesn’t assist your credibility, and on that note…….
“….firstly, I’m not sure that I need to build up personal credibility because I should like to think that my credibility is established by the valdity (or otherwise) of the substance of what I have to say;”
The way one sees oneself often is at odds with how others see you. See your own credibility as reward in-and-of-itself. It doesn’t necessarily translate from internal talk to the external group. That’s the crux of my ‘patience’ and credibility comment. If you want to have a friend (dialogue), be a friend. You attract more hummingbirds with honey than with vinegar. You often employ self-deprecating humor, and that’s a start, but if it takes a while for the critters to trust that it’s honey, when your feeder was once filled with something distasteful to their palate, remember to wait.
Clark; I remember you rallying to my defense with the Link to Gonzo Journalism. The funny thing is I never know where that avatar is gonna pop up with registration. I created it back in 2006, and just like HST, it refuses to die a final death.
Sorry technical question,
Hi Ben\Clark,
How do you guys manage to get your avatar’s? I have a wordpress account and gravatar for posting on a couple of football sites but it doesn’t seem to work here?
Thanks in advance.
The creationists will go ‘barmy’ over this finding. No bumbershoot can protect them from the refreshing rain of science.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/03/11/174041948/claims-of-a-meteorites-ancient-aquatic-fossils-spark-debate
“A meteorite that lit the sky over Sri Lanka with a yellow and green flame when it fell to earth on Dec. 29, 2012, contains “fossilized biological structures,” according to researchers in Britain, Sri Lanka, and the United States. Elaborating on claims they first made in January, the scientists are also seeking to answer critics who are skeptical of their findings.”
Sorry CE. Clark is the genius. One of my emails is Iamnotatechie.com